Willam A. Wheelock Mansion ca. 1937

This Second Empire-style mansion, located at 661 West 158th Street with grounds spreading from West 158th to 160th Streets, was built about 1860 for businessman William Almy Wheelock. The Wheelock House withstood the incursion of the 1904 Riverside Drive extension, which was curved inward toward the east to avoid the charming villas of Audubon Park. Laid out around an oval park with a white marble fountain group, the Drive tended to isolate the houses, which were gradually replaced by apartment houses. Almost the last of the old places to survive was 661 West 158th Street. It was finally demolished in 1938, just a year after photographer Berenice Abbott documented it, for Riverside Houses, a low-income housing project.